Monthly Archives: July 2013

It’s what you Google the most, isn’t it? What you want to ask other people but are too scared of the answer. Looking for something, anything that will give you definitive proof of what you suspect. That something is wrong. That this way of living, of feeling this way, isn’t normal.

But how much though? How much is too much to drink? I need actual statistics surely?

You don’t actually. And you won’t get them. Firstly because everyone is different from a physiological point of view, so another person’s alcohol consumption becomes irrelevant to yours.

Secondly because you’ll be surrounding yourself more and more with heavy drinkers in a bid to feel better, so your perspective on normal drinking from a social point of view is already warped.

And thirdly because you’re most likely already lying to yourself about how much you drink anyway so you genuinely won’t be able to answer the question accurately.

I wanted to know so badly. For years I hoped that if I searched long enough I’d find conclusive proof I wasn’t behaving normally. I never found it. If I wanted it today I’d still struggle to find it. It turns out that all I really needed to know was this:

If you’re asking the question in the first place? You’re drinking too much. If you have to question your drinking at all. To explain it, justify it in any way, at any point, to yourself or to anybody else? Then you’re drinking too much. If it is affecting your life in any way big or small, you’re drinking too much. And the moment any of this happens is the moment to stop. Don’t wait for things to get worse.

Alcohol isn’t supposed to be a central focus of anyone’s life. It really isn’t. It’s a side attraction. An incidental accompaniment to meeting friends or having a celebration. If it’s taking up your headspace, or wasting your time, or distracting you from the real business of living your life?

Then you’re drinking too much.

And if this feels like incredibly bad news to you? That to stop drinking right now would be any sort of loss?

I don’t know why your friends can have one or two drinks and feel like that’s enough, whilst one drink makes you crave two, two makes your thirsty for three, and four creates a need and a want that can never be satisfied.

I can’t explain where that feeling of dread and resignation comes from, knowing you are about to make a fool of yourself at this party/night out/afternoon session because your bad behaviour is now a foregone conclusion. Because you have no control over how much you drink, or how you behave when you do drink.

I can tell you it does not have to be this way.

You’ve tried to moderate your alcohol intake

It didn’t work

You’ve tried taking a break from drinking after you behaviour when drinking has scared you

It didn’t work

That is enough to just stop right now. It doesn’t have to get any more dramatic than that. Anymore serious. That in and of itself is enough to say “ok I’m done”

Because the thing is sweetheart, it won’t change. You won’t wake up one day and magically be able to drink like everyone else

And it doesn’t matter why you can’t. It’s not relevant. You cant. They can. End of.

Just because your drinking days are over doesn’t mean your life is over.

Really its just beginning.

If you can get a handle on this now, when you’re at this stage of abusing alcohol, (and that’s what you are doing petal, let’s be honest) it’s so much easier. Easier than waiting until you lose your job, your friends, your physical and mental health. If you can get to grips with making the decision to stop drinking now. At this point. Then believe me pet your life will go in a completely different direction.

Problem is you’ll have to do it on your own.

See most people think they have to be at end-stage alcoholism to stop drinking. That anything before that is just an overreaction. Totally unnecessary. Which is a shame because honestly you’ll never meet any end-stage alcoholic that doesn’t wish dearly that they’d stopped drinking at the stage you are at now.

If something does not feel right about your drinking. If you are scared by your lack of control. If one drink makes you crave another. If it takes you to a bad, dark place you’d never dream of visiting otherwise. Makes you behave in a way that is so at odds with your personality. Then that’s all the justification you need to stop.

Being afraid and unhappy is enough to constitute having a problem. It really is. But because so many people do abuse alcohol these days without being addicted to it. Without feeling the craving, the physical need for it, just because they can. You will have to be the person that takes your problem seriously. No one on the outside can do it for you.

It’s about knowing yourself. Accepting yourself. Looking for new life experiences away from this destructive confusing compulsive existence. There’s so much in this world to enjoy that doesnt involve alcohol. You dont need to justify your lack of drinking to anyone.

But you don’t need to wait for permission to stop drinking either.

Because we live in a society where that permission won’t come

I don’t know why you can’t drink like your friends can. Why your life becomes so chaotic and uncontrollable. Why your thirst and want and need is so insatiable.